


Deceptive Dissimulation

by QueenBoudica



Series: Selective Ignorance [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Finds Out About Merlin’s Magic (Merlin), Crack, Fanart, Gen, Humor, Magic Revealed, Oblivious Arthur, Oblivious Merlin, POV Uther Pendragon, Uther already knew, camelot's national exotic bird is a toucan, chapter two is just art, don't ask uther he doesn't know why either, for a given value of nice, he's not evil is what I'm trying to say, nice!Uther, to Arthur anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-05-30 06:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15090554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenBoudica/pseuds/QueenBoudica
Summary: Uther was having a nice day, until some idiot sorcerer ruined it.Oh, I see where you're confused. No, he doesn't mean the sorcerer who stormed into the throne room and broke his favourite window. He means his son's idiot manservant who's making it really hard for Uther to feign ignorance regarding the fact that the boy obviously has magic.Uther's POV of Deliberate Disregard(Update: I made a separate chapter for the art because I know ao3 mobile hates images)





	1. Duplicitous Deceit

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I'm finally back (after almost three years oops) with the long-awaited sequel to Deliberate Disregard (and Deleterious Defenestration, of course). I suggest you go back and read those first, since I changed some stuff around to keep it consistent with this one. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Uther's day had started off innocuously. He'd gotten dressed in his resplendent regalia, in which he rather thought he looked quite dashing. After spending a few minutes striking dramatic poses in the mirror, he took leave of his quarters, taking care to walk in a manner that made his robe billow out regally behind him. As he was striding through the halls, he was abruptly halted when a suit of armour crashed into him. Or rather, he realised, as the armour clattered to the floor, Arthur's manservant had crashed into him while carrying roughly eighty pounds of armour. 

Uther watched, making sure to look imposing while—now what was that boy’s name again? It started with an “M”, right? Marlin, maybe?—scrambled around on the floor, trying to clean up his mess but really only succeeding in picking up pieces and dropping them again. After standing there for a minute without Melvin making any progress, Uther began to seriously question the safety of Camelot. At the beginning, he'd thought that perhaps the boy was feigning incompetence to draw attention away from the fact that he obviously had magic, but the more he saw, the more he thought that no one could achieve that level of idiocy without at least some of it being natural. Uther cleared his throat, breaking Martin from his stammering of apologies. 

“While I appreciate your attempts to make reparations for your error, it appears that it would perhaps be better if you get out of the way and refrain from making this mess worse until after I have gone.”

Malcolm blanched and, after finally managing to pick up the entirety of his load, scampered off. Sometimes Uther could not, for the life of him, understand why Arthur kept that idiot around. Uther himself, of course, couldn’t fire him—he was the one who appointed the boy in the first place, after all. It would be bad form to change his mind. 

He had just begun to start walking forward again when he heard a very loud crash accompanied by what sounded like a few elephants stampeding, and came to the conclusion that the scrawny idiot had fallen down the stairs. Honestly. How could anyone possibly be so clumsy, let alone someone with magic? 

Uther, of course, did not acknowledge that last thought openly. It wouldn’t do for anyone to get any ideas. 

The only reason he allowed the boy to stay in his position was the fact that Arthur had never seen fit to get rid of him—despite what one may think, Uther did trust his son’s judgement—coupled with the fact that there was nobody in existence less competent than Morgan so if the boy actually wished harm upon Camelot, the worst thing that could happen would be all of the curtains getting spontaneously turned into sheep accidentally.

Broken out of his thoughts when he reached the throne room, he entered, ready to begin the rest of his day. Hopefully it would prove to be uneventful.

.-.. .. -. . -... .-. . .- -.-

There was a special place in hell, Uther decided, for sorcerers who attack the throne room when important things were happening. If this reprobate had waited just one more hour, the meeting about allocating grain storage for the duration of the winter would be over. They’d been at it since noon and it had been almost as dull as last week's discussion on whether to make the kingdom’s national exotic bird a toucan. Toucans weren’t even native to Camelot! Despite that, Lady Eòin’s measure somehow passed after nine hours of deliberation and impassioned debate. Sometimes Uther thought he would never understand politics.

Regarding the current crisis, Uther just _knew_ that Lord Dúr would start his speech all over again which would prompt the Duchess of Gan Brí to angrily launch into her rebuttal, which would, in turn, get Lord Leathcheann started with _his_ rebuttal, and so on and so forth until they had repeated the entire meeting up to its current point. 

Still, nothing could be done about it now, so he turned his attention back to the miscreant who had just destroyed his favourite stained-glass window. He was relieved to see that Milton had the situation in hand. He hadn’t really expected otherwise, but the boy displayed new levels of ineptitude every day, so it was entirely possible that he might’ve accidentally tripped and somehow blown up the castle.

Luckily for everyone, no such thing occurred, and the sorcerer (well, the one who was attacking, anyway) was vanquished.

Now that there was no immediate threat, Uther glanced at his son and, to his surprise, saw shock and disbelief warring on his face. Oh, Arthur was probably taken aback at the blatant display of magical prowess in the middle of the throne room. He must've not fully realized exactly how obvious his manservant could be. Well, it would probably take him a few moments to adjust, and this situation wasn’t getting any more resolved by them standing around gawping. Uther was about to begin damage control, but Mason started to speak before he could.

Well, when Uther said 'speak' he actually meant 'try and fail to stammer out an excuse', so he cut the boy off before his incompetence got too painful. The idiot had just finished saying that he could somehow explain what had happened, which was possibly the most ridiculous thing Uther’d heard all day, including his counselor’s advice to use carrier pigeons as the primary transport system of grain throughout Camelot's provinces.

“I’m sure you can, but I don’t want to hear it. The less I know about this, the better.” The boy looked stunned, and Uther once again lamented his idiocy. It was hard to believe that Miles actually thought that there was even a single person who didn’t know about his magic.

Since there was apparently a need to clarify the situation further, Uther continued.

“Wasn’t here; didn’t see it; couldn’t stop you.”

There. That had to be able to get through even the thickest of skulls. Pleased, he turned to leave. As he strode out of the room, he heard Arthur break his stunned silence.

“Merlin,”—ah so that was his name!—his son started, “what the fuck just happened?”

Wait. 

Hold on a moment. 

Back up.

Did—did Arthur not know? How could he not know? Everyone in Camelot knew, for god’s sake! Even that serf who had come to put in the new window (which had thankfully been repaired) on behalf of the masonry guild probably knew, and Arthur didn’t? Uther never knew that his son, the crown prince of Camelot, the man who would _inherit his throne_ , could be so unobservant. 

Maybe he’d been a bit hasty in disowning Morgana. 

She had to know about the magic, right?

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! So I made a great end note and then accidentally deleted it so I have no idea what it said , so let's just pretend this note is something really witty and entertaining while still remaining relevant to the fic
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Delightful Designs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art, not a new chapter (sorry)

Thank you so much to whoever nominated this fic for the 2019 Headline Awards! 51kas81 made some beautiful banners, and I don't want all their hard work to go to waste, so here they are! 

I highly recommend checking out the other winners if you have the opportunity. The other winners in these categories were "My Son, The Prince" by smcstraw and "Sustained by Hate" by Willowoftheriver.

I can't find the other nominees because they were taken down but I do remember that "Repercussions" by PeaceHeather was one of them, and you should definitely read it because it's amazing.

 

 

Also I gave image descriptions when I posted them in the chapter, but if you can't find them, please drop a comment and I'll add some here.


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